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OPINION:
In his recent speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, President Trump said he doesn’t believe America should have permanent enemies, and he offered Iran “a much brighter future” and “a new path” if its leaders would agree to a deal addressing concerns about their nuclear program. The president discussed reconciling with Iran, envisioning stability and prosperity in the Middle East based on “commerce, not chaos.”
However, despite several rounds of negotiations over the past few weeks, the U.S. and Iran have been deadlocked because Iranian leaders are clinging to their so-called “right” to enrich uranium.
Uranium enrichment is the process of concentrating the rare uranium isotope uranium-235 (U-235) so it can be used for either nuclear reactor fuel (3% to 5% U-235) or nuclear weapons fuel (90% U-235). Iran claims that because it has the right to peaceful nuclear technology under the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it also has the right to enrich uranium.
Prior to the Obama administration, Democratic and Republican presidents, as well as America’s European allies, strongly opposed letting Iran enrich uranium. The reason was that this process, even if initially intended for low-level enrichment for peaceful purposes, can easily be used to make nuclear weapons fuel. Because there were growing indications starting in the 1990s that Iran was acquiring technologies for a covert nuclear weapons program, neither the U.S. nor its allies believed Iran could be trusted with uranium enrichment.
This changed during the Obama administration. Desperate to negotiate a legacy nuclear deal for President Barack Obama, administration officials conceded to Iran the right to enrich uranium. This 2015 agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), allowed Iran to enrich uranium to reactor-grade for 10 years. After 10 years, Iran could enrich to any level. After 15 years, Iran could start operating large enrichment facilities.
Then Secretary of State John Kerry was behind these concessions. As a senator, Mr. Kerry had argued in 2009 that Iran had the right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. While he was still in the Senate in 2011, Mr. Kerry informed Iran (through Oman) on behalf of the Obama administration that the United States would acknowledge Iran’s right to enrich uranium at the start of new nuclear talks, according to New York Times reporter Mark Landler in his 2016 book “Alter Egos” and a 2015 report by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Mr. Kerry acted on his 2011 offer when he became Mr. Obama’s secretary of state in 2013 and the head U.S. negotiator in talks with Iran that led to the JCPOA.
The JCPOA did little to stop Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the regime extensively cheated on it. In 2018, President Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA, which he described as “the worst deal ever.”
The world came to realize how bad the JCPOA was when Joe Biden became president in 2021. Utilizing years of secret nuclear weapons work that violated the JCPOA and exploiting the weakest U.S. president in history, Iran massively expanded its uranium enrichment program under President Biden. This included enriching to the 60% U-235 level for the first time in April 2021. Sixty percent enriched uranium is just below weapons-grade and has no peaceful applications.
Due to the surge in Iran’s enrichment program since 2021, by February 2025, it could enrich enough uranium to fuel a nuclear weapon in less than a week and fuel 14 nuclear weapons in about four months, according to a report by the Institute for Science and International Security. By comparison, at the end of the first Trump administration Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for only two bombs in five-and-a-half months. It would take Iran about six months to a year after producing sufficient weapons-grade fuel to construct its first prototype nuclear weapon.
In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is wrestling with Iran over alleged covert nuclear activities and undeclared nuclear sites revealed in documents on the Iranian nuclear program stolen by Israel in 2018. Iran was censured twice in 2022 and twice again in 2024 for refusing to cooperate with IAEA investigations of two of these undeclared nuclear sites.
Iran claims it needs to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, primarily to fuel its one nuclear power reactor. It also says it needs to enrich smaller amounts of uranium to fuel research reactors and to produce radiopharmaceuticals. These justifications are false and misleading. Iran already imports fuel rods for its nuclear reactor because it cannot make them itself. It would also be easier and less expensive for Iran to purchase fuel for its research reactors and radiopharmaceuticals from other countries.
Iran and some Western think tanks have floated compromises on the uranium enrichment issue to facilitate a U.S.-Iran agreement that supposedly would allow Iran to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, such as suspending all enrichment for a few years, limiting enrichment to reactor-grade and enriching under close IAEA monitoring.
These proposed compromises ignore the reality that Iranian officials have no interest in enriching for peaceful purposes. They are clinging to Mr. Kerry’s foolish concession on the right to enrich uranium for one reason: They want to make large amounts of nuclear weapons fuel. Iran doesn’t want to build just one nuclear bomb. It intends to make dozens of them.
President Trump and his national security team deserve a lot of credit for taking a hard line on enrichment in talks with Iran. Iranian enrichment of uranium at any level is a grave threat to regional and global security. There can be no meaningful nuclear agreement with Iran that does not require it to halt and dismantle its enrichment program and ship its enriched uranium stockpile out of the country.
• Fred Fleitz is a vice chair with the America First Policy Institute. He previously served as National Security Council chief of staff, CIA analyst and a House Intelligence Committee staff member. Mr. Fleitz was a member of the CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center and he served as a U.S. delegate to the IAEA Board of Governors.
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